Recently, I was rushed, and left a stash of DPN in a rental car. Some of those needles were loved.
This morning, I was in a LYS and noticed that she had a new rack of various kinds of sock needles. I went through the rack looking for needles to replace recent loss. There was some skacel addi steel US #1 (2.5 mm) DPN ,
20 cm long. I bought them. Bad idea!
Now I know why people hate steel needles! First those skacel are slippery! (I do not polish mine that much.) Second, they feel "dead." they are annealed and do not have the flex and "spring" of the spring steel needles that I make. And, because they do not have any spring , they can not be used for the high speed/ low stress knitting techniques. The only good thing about them is that they will never wear out, because I am never going to use them (again).
I did have a long talk with the blacksmith who was working as an enactor at Louisburg. He assured me that while in 1744, all the iron came over from Europe as large ingots, a good blacksmith could make a spring steel out of it, similar to my spring steel knitting needles.
Aha! Now I wonder: I have quite a lot of old steel needles, which work okay for me but I'm not using a knitting sheath. Have you compared your needles with the "antique" ones (still fairly readily available on eBay)? Are the "antique" ones springy enough, or somewhere in between, or just like the modern ones?
Aha again. Please do put that information in the book that goes with your video!
The simple answer is "No." I have not been able to get my hands on a set of "old" gansey needles for testing.
Many of the Victorian era steel needles in shorter lengths were cast. Those needles are stiffer, and brittle! Drop them on a stone floor and they break. On the other hand, they work very well with the various styles of knitting sheaths that do not require the needle to flex such as the Yorkshire Goose wing. On the other hand, the modern skacel needle bent, and was useless with a knitting sheath. perhaps they are assuming some use where the needle is bent and used for gloves or doll clothes or
When could European knitters have been able to get spring steel needles? In the 7th century, the Scandinavians discovered native steel deposits in what is now Sweden. That allowed them to develop a set of tools for shipbuilders that remained unchanged until the industrial revolution. After the 10th century, sophisticated iron smelting in Africa was producing the steel that the Arabs traded up into Spain and which become the basis for the famous Spanish swords. Part of that same shipbuilders tool kit was used by builders, coopers, carriage makers, and other professionals. Harness and saddle makers were common, and required steel knives. Soldiers and fighting men had their own needs. Even sheep shearers had their shears with spring. Wherever there was a concentration of any of these professionals, with the tools of their trade, there were blacksmiths that could make and repair such tools. A master knitter could also have had excellent steel needles.
Could the average household have afforded a set of steel knitting needles? I do not expect that a set of gansey needles would have been much more valuable than a good iron cooking pot or a good steel ax head. (Speculation on my part, at this time ) Certainly, fine steel needles might have been something of an extravagance for anyone except a professional knitter or someone knitting for a fisherman or sailor. Rather on the same level as a modern automobile. Cars are expensive, and yet today, many households own one or more cars.
Looking at the pictures in Mary Wright, we can tell that after 1840, the poor were knitting with low quality iron needles. But those were not master knitters, those were the poor that had been taught to knit (It may also be that bent needle is the result of using the needle to poke the fire, whereby the needle became annealed and the knitter did not know how to retemper the needle.) . The softness of the modern skacel needle is a function of how they are tempered. It can be changed. I just heated one of those needles to red heat, dropped it in water, reheated it to ~300 F, and allowed it to air cool. That retempered needle now has a spring to it that I like and I expect that I will retemper the other needles in the package.
Katherine i went to check my inherited needles , i see that the ones i enjoy are all aluminium and painted , i have some metal , i can`t remember ever using them ...
Is there a convention among knitters not to consider aluminum, a metal?
My 2 cents is that for travel, I like wooden or bamboo needles because I find that I am less likely to drop a stitch. While at home, my spring steel needles are a bit faster than even the super polished bamboo sprayed with silicon.
No it iss not a convention and i am sure we all know that Aluminium is a metal , but it is a light metal and feels so much nicer than other metal Needles ,,,,, mirjam
When I first knitted in 1972, I had Milward aluminum needles. I was only making baby clothes, and they were fine., mostly size 7 and 8 Canadian. The larger ones size 5 and under which I would use for a scarf or hat were Aero, grey plastic, not so nice to use. Then fast forward to now, when I've started knitting again. I got my first bamboo needles, and only because they were a dollar less than the plastic ones...which are some other brand now, there is no Milward or Aero. Anyway I loved the bamboo right away. After a few hours they get nice and sort of coated, I guess with the natural oil from my hands even though they were washed. They are fast or seem faster than the plastic ones. I stopped using the plastic, circular needle I was knitting the afghan on, and switched to the 8 mm bamboo needles; much faster and nicer. However, circular needles with a cable are good to knit in your lap when waiting in a doctor's office or something.
But when I learned to knit, my teacher, a neighbour, used the aluminum needles and that is all they had in the stores back in the 70s.
I had one odd set, a bright blue steel set, size 6, probably for some one-time project. I tried them last night and they are horrible to use, clicking and tapping and so heavy.
I'm not going to waste all my many aluminum Milward needles, they are quite nice as they are coated and smooth, but any time I need another size or set, it will be bamboo - I already have two sets. I have about 5 scarves and one afghan going right now; I alternate for variety. I've finished 4 already, and am about satisfied now, and starting to be critical of the needle size and number cast on....noticing that with a smaller needle, the scarf is more lush and dense...but I can't really unravel them all and start over.... After this, I have to do some real things, like baby clothes for the new grandchild due in September, as I think my daughter indicated she won't want her baby clothes I knitted 32 years ago...which is pretty surprising for me but that is the lot of the older generation and I'm now a full fledged member, arthritis and all... so although I first knit when I was 22, for the joy of it and practicality of it, now I am the "age group" to knit..but I'm not doing it because I'm old, but because of the joy of it....it's a funny world.
I just know, what I have seen in old ads. (Although, I do not seem to be able to locate an example on the internet that I can show you now.)
This question whether some old steel needles were cast is why I am trying to get a hold of old needles.
Steel can certainly be cast in the size range of common knitting needles. It is a very cheap process, and produces a very low quality of product - which is likely why your husband does not think of it as feasible. Cast steel needles would be stiff and very brittle - certainly not a product that your husband would consider a success. However, they would be -- "inexpensive" to produce. I have owned cast steel tools and they were junk! Nevertheless, many of the Victorian era ads for steel needles state that they are "cast."
The antique needles that I am currently characterizing were "cold drawn" wire, then machined and polished to size. From their provenance, I would be surprised if these needles were used for more than 10 or 15 years, and I am quite surprised by the degree of wear on them. Cast steel would be harder and last longer - at least until they were dropped, or exposed to moisture, or sat on. The antique needles that I am looking at now, have bends from use (or being sat on ) in them that would have broken cast steel needles.
But then, cast steel would have been stiffer, and would not have flexed in use. That would have maximized the leverage advantage of using some types of knitting sheaths.
What does you husband think about the fact that some addi steel needles are sold fully annealed?
He thinks that it would be cheaper, easier and quicker to draw needles than to make patterns and moulds and cast them - cast ferrous metal is - and was - poured from large ladles, it simply wouldn't be worth going to the trouble to use small ones even if the moulds were made.
Certainly cast iron is brittle but it's only used, in our knowledge, for large items which need strength in their mass but nothing else. What cast tools have you had?
The cast tools that I had were bought long ago, and very cheaply.
Casting is an old technology that is very tolerant of poor quality materials. Get a bit of slag in a casting pour, and all that happens is some parts do not come out, and they can be remelted and recast in another pour. They could cast iron or steel in the 1550s. The Victorians had mastered the technology. Look at an 1880's Singer sewing machine.
The process for cold drawn steel is complicated. While cold rolling was known as early as 1747, and had became an industry in Germany by the 1830s, I think that the first cold drawn steel in a US machine shop did not occur until after 1885. That shop later became a centerpiece of the Carnegie steel empire.
Since WWII, we have had better quality steel, better quality machine tools, and better tools for drawing steel. After WWll, we sold the crude casting technology to places like China and India where they continued to use it. Now, the Chinese are reselling the equipment in Africa. Think about how complex the process of drawing steel is. Casting is much simpler.
I expect that prior to the 1880s, the cheap way to make iron or steel needles was to cast them. Better needles would have been forged, possibly from rolled stock.
I have an old packet of "superfine nickel plated knitting pins". The packet claims: "this rust-proof envelope contains 4 best quality steel tapered knitting pins". However, the tips of all four are badly rusted on one end. What's the best way to restore them to usable order?
Yes, steel needles used to be plated more often than not to prevent rust but it was very thin and does wear off.
I inherited a lot of needles, some in their original dark purple or white and gold packets. Most were rusty so I used a fine emery cloth to fub off the rust and finished them to a fine polish with the finest emery cloth. I doubt that they'll rust again in our house but if I travelled with them or used them outside they might. It's not difficult to get rid of the rust though.
Sometimes the rust has pitted the needles, that won't rub out without altering the diameter of the needle so I don't try but the pitting doesn't make any difference to their use.
a bunch of little pliers, wrenches and a claw hammer.
China in the 6th century BC, and Europe in the 12th century, but practical availability in Europe was mid-16th century
No, look at the treadle and the iron frame that forms the legs. You can see mold marks. You can see where the sprues were cut, and ground off. Many of the parts inside the case were cast and machined. Because of the potential for defects in the cast metal, those parts were massive for the trivial forces that they were expected to sustain. The result is that they last forever. A modern designer, using modern quality controlled steel would use only a tenth as much metal for those stresses.
Only for softer metals such as gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and their alloys. Not for iron and steel. *Round* steel "wire" is modern luxury. Better, cheaper, bicycle spokes, the steel rods that reinforced theWright Brothers airplanes, and round nails, all flowed from this modern luxury.
Cold drawing iron or steel wire requires a very finely graduated draw plate or else the wire work-hardens so much that the wire breaks under the tension of the drawing process as it passes thru the drawplate. Annealing the wire between draws produces scale that can cause problems in the next pass through the drawplate. Therefore, the rate of draw is adjusted so that the heat generated by the deformation of the metal softens and anneals the iron enough that it can be pulled through the drawplate without breaking. Finally, the drawplates tend to crack. It is a very clever process that requires a rather nice bit of engineering. I have cast iron and steel. (I know that it is possible to cast a small amounts of iron at a time because I have done it!) I have forged and tempered good steel tools. I have drawn commercial quantities of silver and gold wire. However, I was never able to draw iron or steel wire. I tried. All I got was a sore rump. (Why did I try? Some "know-it-all" visiting professor told me that I would not be able to do it!)
Cast steel and cast iron tend to be quite brittle. Forging, rolling, and drawing cast iron/steel reduces the size of the iron crystals and thereby reduces its brittleness. That is why blanks for high strength parts are cast; and, then the parts forged from the cast blanks. And, why very cheap items are simply cast, without the expensive follow-on processing to reduce brittleness.
Fine and superfine lace needles must have been forged. And gansey needles, with their spring action must have been forged. But, why were needle makers bragging about their needles being cast? consistency? stiffness? tradition? roundness? texture? What virtues were those knitters seeking in their needles ?
Originally I thought that the bent gansey needles shown in Mary Wright were the result of forged steel needles that had lost their temper. Now, I understand than even my spring steel needles pick up those distinctive bends in a few hundred hours of use. With cheaply available cold drawn steel rod at the local hardware store, it is cheaper to just make new ones, than to try to reforge and retemper my old needles. I love modern steel rod.
And, I can use my old knitting needles to toast marshmallows.
First try polishing the rust off with crocus cloth. (It is cloth coated with a reddish orange abrasive.)
If that does not work, try 600 grit emery paper. If you end up using the
600 grit emery paper you will need to polish that area with finer emery paper ( I use 1000 and 1500 grit) followed by a final polish with crocus cloth.
An alternative is to buff then ends of the needles with a fine abrasive compound on a buffing wheel. This is very fast and can leave a surface that is very slick. When I do this, I go back and take off some of the polish off with my crocus cloth.
If the corrosion has gotten under the nickel, and the nickel is peeling off, you will need to remove all of the loose nickel or it will cut your yarn. This may mean that you end up reshaping the tips of the needles. This easily done by chucking the needles into an electric drill and pressing the rotating tip against a whet stone (with oil or water to remove the particles). This will have to be followed by the emery paper process above, possibly also using coarser grades of emery paper.
Remember, the knitters of old routinely reshaped their knitting points on whet stones or even roofing slates.
My favorite tool for touching up my knitting needles has become the little triangular ceramic whet stone that Felco sells for sharpening up their pruning shears. That followed by a bit of crocus cloth leaves the needle point smooth but not slippery. I have little bits of crocus cloth everywhere, and I polish my steel needles with crocus cloth often. (Every 3 or 4 months for steel needles that are handled but not used for knitting oiled wool.) Needles that were properly put away without fingerprints are safe.
If I had old nickel plated needles, where the nickel had worn through and the steel rusted, I would spray them with WD-40, put them aside, and make a new set of needles from steel rod from the hardware store. Over all, I would say that just making a new set of needles from steel rod is easier than dealing with the plating issue. I think that you are going to have ongoing corrosion, with little, sharp flakes of nickel peeling up from the steel. Those little flakes of plating catch the yarn. . . . Sorry!
I note steel needles seem to be available everywhere. That was not true a couple of years ago. Aaron
I noticed no nickel plating coming off but I dare say once I attack the rust I may notice something. I don't really want to use them - I prefer lighter needles. I bought them because of their vintage nature (I'm sure you've noticed my attraction to vintage knitting things), but I don't want them to sit with rust on them either.
When i learned to knit , on both cast iron and first Aluminium needles i was taught to `Always sharpen your needles on the stone floors we have. This habit is so known that some ladies went on doing it with the more Contemporary needles whatever they are made of . mirjam
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